Secretary of State’s reaction to judge’s R-71 admonition

Secretary of State Sam Reed said Wednesday he was pleased with a King County Superior Court judge’s ruling earlier in the day that rejected an attempt to block a public vote on expanded same-sex domestic partnership benefits in Washington state.

Reed

Judge Julie Spector said she had serious concerns that thousands of invalid signatures may have been accepted for Referendum 71, but rejected an attempt to keep the measure from the November ballot. Spector said challenges to a referendum must be filed in Thurston County Superior Court after certification – and supporters of the “everything but marriage” law still had that option for trying to get R-71 off the ballot.

Spector did say Reed has the power under state law to reject petitions with falsely signed declarations, petitions with blank declarations and signatures from people who weren’t yet registered to vote.

Reed certified R-71 Wednesday. The referendum qualified for the November ballot by just 1,430 signatures, “possibly the slimmest margin in state history for a measure making the ballot,” the secretary of state’s office said.

David Ammons, Reed’s spokesman, said the secretary of state “took note of the judge’s critical comments on the signature-check process, and said lawmakers may choose to address some of the points, such as the law that requires a signature-gatherer’s declaration to be printed on the back of each petition, but that doesn’t specifically require that each actually be signed personally by the solicitor. This situation has existed for at least three years, without definitive legislation to require the Secretary to discard any signatures on petitions without the circulator’s personal signature.”

Ammons said Reed defended the state’s policies that help people try to use the initiative and referendum process guaranteed in the state’s Constitution. Reed noted a 2006 attorney general’s opinion that permits himto include signatures from petitions without a signed declaration by the petition-circulator, Ammons said.

Reed also defended the practice of counting the signatures of people who register to vote at the same time they sign the petition, Ammons said.

“And regarding complaints about the practices of individual solicitors and statements made by sponsors in the sales-pitch portion of the petition, Reed said those are not subject to regulation by the Secretary of State or Attorney General, and that state Supreme Court rulings have equated campaign statements with political free speech and not allowed state censorship,” Ammons said.